NASPE Highlights at the 126th National Convention & Exposition
Professional development highlights include:
· NASPE/NCATE Aligning Assignments, Assessments & Rubrics with Initial
PETE Standards on March 29
· NCACE Coaching Education Accreditation Workshop on March 30th
· Physical Best for Higher Education: Integrating PE into PETE
Curricula on March 30
· Physical Best Specialist Workshop on March 29th
· Double the PLEASURE, Double the FUN: PB for Secondary PE
· PIPElineWorkshop: Assessment Strategies: K-12 Physical Education on
March 29
Other NASPE Highlights include:
· All AAHPERD Special Events
· Early Childhood Day, Elementary and Secondary PE Days and a Coaching
Education Day
· NASPE town hall meetings
· The Academy Forums
· PE2020 - Leadership in Physical Education for the Next Decade
· Introducing PE Metrics: Assessing National Standards 1-6 in Secondary
School!
· College/University Instructional Physical Activity Program Social and
Business Meeting
· Visit the NASPE Pavilion to tell about your favorite NASPE book to be
entered to win a great prize!
Mobile Apps
SportyPal - Available for BlackBerry, Android, and iOS (iPhone/iPod)
SportyPal is an easy to use intuitive application for your mobile
phone. You activate it when you start your running, cycling, walking,
rollerblading or similar exercise. In two simple clicks it will start to
log and map your position, movement, distance, tempo and calories
burned. It will not affect normal operation of your mobile phone, so you
can still listen to music, receive and initiate calls and messages.
When you finish exercising, the collected performance information will
be stored on your mobile. Later you can review it, compare it with other
exercises or check your best performance achievements. SportyPal will
present each exercise in a map view, draw elegant graphics charts of
your performance or present summarized information. SportyPal is
intuitively designed to assist you improve your performance in running,
cycling, blading, walking, skiing or other workouts involving similar
activities.
The real brilliance of SportyPal comes with the web integration. You
have a possibility to upload your workouts on the internet with a simple
click of a button on your mobile phone. Registering to SportyPal web
application will enable you to have instant access to your workouts
performance and maps from anywhere. The web application provides
additional functionality for analysis of your fitness workouts.
February Web Sites
Free Resources: Learning about Mobile Software http://www.pesoftware.com/Resources/MobileSoftware.html
Recommended Magazines http://www.pesoftware.com/Resources/Magazines.html
Free Photos for Education http://pics4learning.com/
Free Web Hosting http://www.zymic.com/
If you know of a school or program that might be interested in getting
funds for a running club- this is a great opportunity for them. The
2011 application is now up and running on the ING website. Please
visit: http://www.aahperd.org/naspe/grants/grants/ING/index.cfm?cid=00001
where you can find the link that will take you to the new online
application!
There are a few changes this year-one obviously being the application
process. We have gone online and this process will allow you to start
your application, save it and come back to it later as well. It will
also help ensure that you have all the pieces of your application so you
will be able to be considered for a 2011 grant. All pieces of the
application must be done in order to submit it!
A few of the new changes this year-the program will be open for grades
K-8, but you must have at least 25 eligible participants in grades 4-8
(in order to do accurate PACER testing) to apply. This year there will
also be a sliding scale in regards to funding. All schools chosen to
receive a 2011 grant will receive the upfront $1,000 check to start your
program. The second installment will be determined by how many eligible
kids complete the program. If your school has 25-49 eligible students
finishing the program, you will get $500. If you have 50-99 eligible
students finish the program, you will receive $1,000. If your program
has 100 or more eligible students, your second installment will be
$1,500. This year we will also require proof of a culminating event-it
can be pictures, news article, etc. Most of you already have submitted
that if you won in the past anyways since you love to share about your
fabulous running programs!
Another change is that the program must be offered a minimum of 2
days/week if it is a before or after school program. If the program is
held during school time (i.e., a PE class) the program must be offered a
minimum of 3 days/week.
Journals, Articles, essays:
SAVING PHYSICAL EDUCATION
As I write it’s no pleasure to report that House Bill 1025, now under
review in the Washington State Legislature, proposes to cut the
requirement for school districts to offer K-8 physical education. If
passed, it would give school districts the right to create their own
policy "regarding access to nutritious foods and opportunities for
developmentally appropriate exercise." I doubt it will pass, not much
does these days, but this news does reflect the sorry state of affairs
public school physical education too often finds itself in today. How
far would a proposal to eliminate English as a required school subject
go among state legislators? How about math? Nowhere. It would be viewed
as absurd. Voters would question their representatives' sanity. In
today's world students obviously need reading, writing, and math skills.
But why so obvious? It's not as if there's something students have to
read as adults. There's nothing they have to compute. People around the
world can, and do, get by without these skills as they have for
centuries throughout the history of civilization. So why are they so
important today? I'm guessing it's due to a belief that these skills
will enhance the quality of our children's lives. Sure, they can live
perfectly well without them. But they will live a lot better with them.
Reading, writing, and mathematics are a vital part of becoming
"educated" which itself isn't an end, but rather a means to an end.
Educated children possess knowledge and skills that improve the quality
of their lives. Education prepares them to be productive and successful
future citizens.
What about physical education? Why don't we see the same public
support? Every year, in some state or in some school district, physical
education is threatened with being cut. Maybe it begins with someone who
had a bad personal physical education experience as a child? But if so,
why do 'PE cutting proposals' gather so much support? It's tempting, but
naïve, to believe that physical education detractors are all fools. They
aren't. Which begs the question, "Why do people of above average
intelligence, who are concerned about education, believe that students
would be better off without school physical education?" Is it true, as
circus owner P.T. Barnum reportedly said, that you can fool some of the
people all of the time? What's scary is the thought that these
repetitious efforts to cut physical education might reflect a different,
but more insidious threat, to our professional future.
Amazingly, PE cutting efforts go on when almost daily we learn more
about the negative consequences of sedentary living. And I don't just
refer to physical health. It's becoming clearer that people who don't
move enough suffer all sorts of undesirable social, emotional,
intellectual, financial, and yes - physical and health consequences. But
just for a moment, thinking only about health care, it's clear the
nation is headed for economic catastrophe - total derailment - if we
don't regroup and focus on wellness rather than sickness; prevention
instead of treatment. Does this mean we all need to do a much better job
justifying physical education as the solution to our health malaise?
Maybe. But maybe that's only part of the problem. Is the problem the
message or the messengers?
What about the possibility that the public understands the threats
of sedentary and unhealthy living, realizes that something must be done,
but just doesn't see school physical education as the solution? And why
should they? Where's the evidence justifying physical education's place
in our public schools? At best it's weak. Think about it. What if our
pleas to be taken seriously were, well… taken seriously? Maybe it's
lucky that no one really listens to us. If they did they might ask for
more than anecdotal evidence.
In contrast, it's easy to justify teaching math. When was the last
time anyone questioned requiring math in the school curriculum? Examples
of math skills and knoviewed, not just as worthwhile, but as essential. The same is true with
language and literature. It doesn't matter where you learn them or who
the teacher is; reading, writing, and math skills are identifiable,
assessable, reportable, and comparable. And assess and study these
outcomes, we do.
Not so with physical education. What do students learn in physical
education? Rarely can we visit two neighboring schools and identify the
skills in common that kids in both schools are learning. In fact, in
most places we can't even watch classes taught by two different teachers
in the same school and see consistent learning outcomes. Forget even
thinking about being able to explain the learning occurring in an entire
school district's program, or physical education in different cities -
much less an entire state, region, or country. Sadly, that's a huge
impediment to us being taken seriously.
We are convinced that what we do is worthwhile, even if it looks
very different from the next person, but we struggle to convince others.
Are we deluding ourselves? Acting like the Emperor who, convinced he is
wearing some fine new clothes, parades around naked in the famous Hans
Christian Anderson tale? Why can't others see our importance? What's
wrong with them? Like trying to explain something to non-English
speakers. In frustration we may talk louder, when it's not their hearing
that's the problem.
Jo Anne Owens-Nauslar, former AAHPERD President, has many times
challenged us to recognize that "If the horse is dead, dismount."
Instead, we persist with the same inconsistent messages. Only when it's
too late - threatened with extinction - do we realize we have a problem.
Often it's too late. We try laboriously to backtrack. We implore for
continuance. Sometimes we succeed. Sometimes we fail. But then the story
repeats itself as it has done for decades. Can we delay the inevitable?
What's to be done?
Well first, we've got to sort out in our own minds where we are
going with physical education, and why. Twice weekly, or even daily,
physical education classes aren't going to solve obesity. Heck, they
aren't even going to keep most children from becoming increasingly
slothful and moderately tubby. PE classes are not the solution to
getting kids to meet the recommended 60 minutes of daily physical
activity. Neither are we going to improve scores in math and reading by
making kids count and read task cards in the gym. That just decreases
their physical activity.
Sadly, physical education classes also aren't going to develop
character traits such as ethics, leadership, honesty, etc., without a
whole lot more class focus on these objectives. Classes that consist of
kids playing games of basketball might develop some interesting
characteristics, but they sure won't lead to the kind of positive
personality development many people believe is possible through physical
education and sports. And we know that 3-week skills units are no way to
develop competent and confident skillful movers or game players.
Unfortunately, solid evidence supporting the justification for including
physical education in our public schools is elusive at best. Truthfully,
unlike English or math teachers, we can't stand in front of our
detractors and prove them wrong. In honesty we probably don't even want
to try, because like the Emperor we risk our nakedness being publicly
revealed.
It's depressing, but not hopeless. Our future is in our hands. We
do have a choice. We can continue with the status quo and simply
anticipate annually hearing about, and fighting, physical education
program cuts. Because, let there be no doubt, that's what's going to
happen. Everything about today's educational trends suggests
accountability is not going away. If we choose to continue along the
same path of waiting then reacting to threatened program cuts, we need
to quit whining. We need to quit feigning surprise. It will continue
unabated, because in fact it is a quite reasonable question for anyoto ask, "What is it that you do?" and then follow up with "Where is the
evidence?"
Imagine if private businesses ran school physical education
programs. You don't think school administrators and the taxpaying public
would expect these commercial groups to prove their effectiveness? In
trying to justify physical education we overlook the obvious. We are too
quick to grasp onto the latest fads and fashions. Obesity a problem?
Physical education to the rescue. Want to improve academic scores?
Physical activity will help brain development. Want better people? Give
them more character-building team games. Have we all forgotten why WE
fell in love with physical education? It wasn't to lose weight, get
smarter, or to become leaders. It was because we loved games and sports
and physical activities. It's that simple. We loved to move. It made us
happy. It connected us with the world, with our brains, and with our
developing bodies. There was no final goal. There was no specific
outcome. It was the journey that delighted us, and helped us to become
healthy, happy, and productive citizens. The process of becoming
physically educated was important for our human development.
The end. No further justification needed. But how to explain this to
others? Ah, that's the question that needs answering.
Steve Jefferies, Publisher
Physical Education Updates and Information for K-12!
In the News, on the Web:
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/need-to-know/video/a-physical-education-in-naperville-ill/7134/
http://www.aahperd.org/about/announcements/letsmoveinschool.cfm
American Heart Month http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=4441
National Girls and Women in Sports Day! Celebrate
http://www.aahperd.org/about/announcements/letsmoveinschool.cfm
Fighting Obesity in Schools- great article
http://www.ednewscolorado.org/2011/02/14/13210-promising-anti-obesity-programs-in-schools
Improving Childhood Heath- a battle we need to fight!
http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=17&articleid=20110214_17_0_OKLAHO929910
PE Metrics Assessing National Standards 1-6 in Secondary School
This brand-new resource extends PE Metrics assessments to the Secondary
level, allowing you to tap into valid and reliable assessments for
evaluating middle school and high school students' progress toward
meeting the National Standards.
Includes:
Ready-to-use assessments addressing the basic skills that students
should have in middle and high school.
CD-ROM full of assessments covering student performance toward all 6
National Standards, including test banks for easy reproduction.
Access to online video clips that offer motion analysis, and depict
acceptable performance and common errors for each Standard 1 skill.
http://iweb.aahperd.org/iweb/Purchase/ProductDetail.aspx?Product_code=304-10504&utm_source=MagnetMail&utm_medium=email&utm_term=johnsoi@gvsu.edu&utm_content=NASPE%3A%20Fast%20Five%20Early%20February&utm_campaign=NASPE's%20Fast%20Five%20Including%20Teacher%20Toolbox%20and%20Survey
NASPE Highlights at the 126th National Convention & Exposition
Professional development highlights include:
· NASPE/NCATE Aligning Assignments, Assessments & Rubrics with Initial
PETE Standards on March 29
· NCACE Coaching Education Accreditation Workshop on March 30th
· Physical Best for Higher Education: Integrating PE into PETE
Curricula on March 30
· Physical Best Specialist Workshop on March 29th
· Double the PLEASURE, Double the FUN: PB for Secondary PE
· PIPElineWorkshop: Assessment Strategies: K-12 Physical Education on
March 29
Other NASPE Highlights include:
· All AAHPERD Special Events
· Early Childhood Day, Elementary and Secondary PE Days and a Coaching
Education Day
· NASPE town hall meetings
· The Academy Forums
· PE2020 - Leadership in Physical Education for the Next Decade
· Introducing PE Metrics: Assessing National Standards 1-6 in Secondary
School!
· College/University Instructional Physical Activity Program Social and
Business Meeting
· Visit the NASPE Pavilion to tell about your favorite NASPE book to be
entered to win a great prize!
Mobile Apps
SportyPal - Available for BlackBerry, Android, and iOS (iPhone/iPod)
SportyPal is an easy to use intuitive application for your mobile
phone. You activate it when you start your running, cycling, walking,
rollerblading or similar exercise. In two simple clicks it will start to
log and map your position, movement, distance, tempo and calories
burned. It will not affect normal operation of your mobile phone, so you
can still listen to music, receive and initiate calls and messages.
When you finish exercising, the collected performance information will
be stored on your mobile. Later you can review it, compare it with other
exercises or check your best performance achievements. SportyPal will
present each exercise in a map view, draw elegant graphics charts of
your performance or present summarized information. SportyPal is
intuitively designed to assist you improve your performance in running,
cycling, blading, walking, skiing or other workouts involving similar
activities.
The real brilliance of SportyPal comes with the web integration. You
have a possibility to upload your workouts on the internet with a simple
click of a button on your mobile phone. Registering to SportyPal web
application will enable you to have instant access to your workouts
performance and maps from anywhere. The web application provides
additional functionality for analysis of your fitness workouts.
February Web Sites
Free Resources: Learning about Mobile Software
http://www.pesoftware.com/Resources/MobileSoftware.html
Recommended Magazines
http://www.pesoftware.com/Resources/Magazines.html
Free Photos for Education
http://pics4learning.com/
Free Web Hosting
http://www.zymic.com/
If you know of a school or program that might be interested in getting
funds for a running club- this is a great opportunity for them. The
2011 application is now up and running on the ING website. Please
visit:
http://www.aahperd.org/naspe/grants/grants/ING/index.cfm?cid=00001
where you can find the link that will take you to the new online
application!
There are a few changes this year-one obviously being the application
process. We have gone online and this process will allow you to start
your application, save it and come back to it later as well. It will
also help ensure that you have all the pieces of your application so you
will be able to be considered for a 2011 grant. All pieces of the
application must be done in order to submit it!
A few of the new changes this year-the program will be open for grades
K-8, but you must have at least 25 eligible participants in grades 4-8
(in order to do accurate PACER testing) to apply. This year there will
also be a sliding scale in regards to funding. All schools chosen to
receive a 2011 grant will receive the upfront $1,000 check to start your
program. The second installment will be determined by how many eligible
kids complete the program. If your school has 25-49 eligible students
finishing the program, you will get $500. If you have 50-99 eligible
students finish the program, you will receive $1,000. If your program
has 100 or more eligible students, your second installment will be
$1,500. This year we will also require proof of a culminating event-it
can be pictures, news article, etc. Most of you already have submitted
that if you won in the past anyways since you love to share about your
fabulous running programs!
Another change is that the program must be offered a minimum of 2
days/week if it is a before or after school program. If the program is
held during school time (i.e., a PE class) the program must be offered a
minimum of 3 days/week.
Journals, Articles, essays:
SAVING PHYSICAL EDUCATION
As I write it’s no pleasure to report that House Bill 1025, now underreview in the Washington State Legislature, proposes to cut the
requirement for school districts to offer K-8 physical education. If
passed, it would give school districts the right to create their own
policy "regarding access to nutritious foods and opportunities for
developmentally appropriate exercise." I doubt it will pass, not much
does these days, but this news does reflect the sorry state of affairs
public school physical education too often finds itself in today. How
far would a proposal to eliminate English as a required school subject
go among state legislators? How about math? Nowhere. It would be viewed
as absurd. Voters would question their representatives' sanity. In
today's world students obviously need reading, writing, and math skills.
But why so obvious? It's not as if there's something students have to
read as adults. There's nothing they have to compute. People around the
world can, and do, get by without these skills as they have for
centuries throughout the history of civilization. So why are they so
important today? I'm guessing it's due to a belief that these skills
will enhance the quality of our children's lives. Sure, they can live
perfectly well without them. But they will live a lot better with them.
Reading, writing, and mathematics are a vital part of becoming
"educated" which itself isn't an end, but rather a means to an end.
Educated children possess knowledge and skills that improve the quality
of their lives. Education prepares them to be productive and successful
future citizens.
What about physical education? Why don't we see the same public
support? Every year, in some state or in some school district, physical
education is threatened with being cut. Maybe it begins with someone who
had a bad personal physical education experience as a child? But if so,
why do 'PE cutting proposals' gather so much support? It's tempting, but
naïve, to believe that physical education detractors are all fools. They
aren't. Which begs the question, "Why do people of above average
intelligence, who are concerned about education, believe that students
would be better off without school physical education?" Is it true, as
circus owner P.T. Barnum reportedly said, that you can fool some of the
people all of the time? What's scary is the thought that these
repetitious efforts to cut physical education might reflect a different,
but more insidious threat, to our professional future.
Amazingly, PE cutting efforts go on when almost daily we learn more
about the negative consequences of sedentary living. And I don't just
refer to physical health. It's becoming clearer that people who don't
move enough suffer all sorts of undesirable social, emotional,
intellectual, financial, and yes - physical and health consequences. But
just for a moment, thinking only about health care, it's clear the
nation is headed for economic catastrophe - total derailment - if we
don't regroup and focus on wellness rather than sickness; prevention
instead of treatment. Does this mean we all need to do a much better job
justifying physical education as the solution to our health malaise?
Maybe. But maybe that's only part of the problem. Is the problem the
message or the messengers?
What about the possibility that the public understands the threats
of sedentary and unhealthy living, realizes that something must be done,
but just doesn't see school physical education as the solution? And why
should they? Where's the evidence justifying physical education's place
in our public schools? At best it's weak. Think about it. What if our
pleas to be taken seriously were, well… taken seriously? Maybe it's
lucky that no one really listens to us. If they did they might ask for
more than anecdotal evidence.
In contrast, it's easy to justify teaching math. When was the last
time anyone questioned requiring math in the school curriculum? Examples
of math skills and knoviewed, not just as worthwhile, but as essential. The same is true with
language and literature. It doesn't matter where you learn them or who
the teacher is; reading, writing, and math skills are identifiable,
assessable, reportable, and comparable. And assess and study these
outcomes, we do.
Not so with physical education. What do students learn in physical
education? Rarely can we visit two neighboring schools and identify the
skills in common that kids in both schools are learning. In fact, in
most places we can't even watch classes taught by two different teachers
in the same school and see consistent learning outcomes. Forget even
thinking about being able to explain the learning occurring in an entire
school district's program, or physical education in different cities -
much less an entire state, region, or country. Sadly, that's a huge
impediment to us being taken seriously.
We are convinced that what we do is worthwhile, even if it looks
very different from the next person, but we struggle to convince others.
Are we deluding ourselves? Acting like the Emperor who, convinced he is
wearing some fine new clothes, parades around naked in the famous Hans
Christian Anderson tale? Why can't others see our importance? What's
wrong with them? Like trying to explain something to non-English
speakers. In frustration we may talk louder, when it's not their hearing
that's the problem.
Jo Anne Owens-Nauslar, former AAHPERD President, has many times
challenged us to recognize that "If the horse is dead, dismount."
Instead, we persist with the same inconsistent messages. Only when it's
too late - threatened with extinction - do we realize we have a problem.
Often it's too late. We try laboriously to backtrack. We implore for
continuance. Sometimes we succeed. Sometimes we fail. But then the story
repeats itself as it has done for decades. Can we delay the inevitable?
What's to be done?
Well first, we've got to sort out in our own minds where we are
going with physical education, and why. Twice weekly, or even daily,
physical education classes aren't going to solve obesity. Heck, they
aren't even going to keep most children from becoming increasingly
slothful and moderately tubby. PE classes are not the solution to
getting kids to meet the recommended 60 minutes of daily physical
activity. Neither are we going to improve scores in math and reading by
making kids count and read task cards in the gym. That just decreases
their physical activity.
Sadly, physical education classes also aren't going to develop
character traits such as ethics, leadership, honesty, etc., without a
whole lot more class focus on these objectives. Classes that consist of
kids playing games of basketball might develop some interesting
characteristics, but they sure won't lead to the kind of positive
personality development many people believe is possible through physical
education and sports. And we know that 3-week skills units are no way to
develop competent and confident skillful movers or game players.
Unfortunately, solid evidence supporting the justification for including
physical education in our public schools is elusive at best. Truthfully,
unlike English or math teachers, we can't stand in front of our
detractors and prove them wrong. In honesty we probably don't even want
to try, because like the Emperor we risk our nakedness being publicly
revealed.
It's depressing, but not hopeless. Our future is in our hands. We
do have a choice. We can continue with the status quo and simply
anticipate annually hearing about, and fighting, physical education
program cuts. Because, let there be no doubt, that's what's going to
happen. Everything about today's educational trends suggests
accountability is not going away. If we choose to continue along the
same path of waiting then reacting to threatened program cuts, we need
to quit whining. We need to quit feigning surprise. It will continue
unabated, because in fact it is a quite reasonable question for anyoto ask, "What is it that you do?" and then follow up with "Where is the
evidence?"
Imagine if private businesses ran school physical education
programs. You don't think school administrators and the taxpaying public
would expect these commercial groups to prove their effectiveness? In
trying to justify physical education we overlook the obvious. We are too
quick to grasp onto the latest fads and fashions. Obesity a problem?
Physical education to the rescue. Want to improve academic scores?
Physical activity will help brain development. Want better people? Give
them more character-building team games. Have we all forgotten why WE
fell in love with physical education? It wasn't to lose weight, get
smarter, or to become leaders. It was because we loved games and sports
and physical activities. It's that simple. We loved to move. It made us
happy. It connected us with the world, with our brains, and with our
developing bodies. There was no final goal. There was no specific
outcome. It was the journey that delighted us, and helped us to become
healthy, happy, and productive citizens. The process of becoming
physically educated was important for our human development.
The end. No further justification needed. But how to explain this to
others? Ah, that's the question that needs answering.
Steve Jefferies, Publisher